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﻿EA confirms Dragon Age 2 DLC caused Steam removal

EA has issued a statement regarding the removal of Dragon Age 2 from Steam, confirming that it's due to "restrictive" DLC policies from Valve.

EA has confirmed in a statement that Dragon Age 2 was pulled from Steam due to a conflict with Valve's new policy on downloadable content. We suspected as much yesterday when the story broke, but EA senior VP of global e-commerce David DeMartini puts the reasoning in no uncertain terms, even calling Steam's policies "restrictive."

At EA, we offer our games and content to all major download services including GameStop, Amazon, Direct2Drive and Steam. Unfortunately, Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to sell downloadable content. No other download service has adopted this practice. Consequently some of our games have been removed by Steam. We hope to work out an agreement to keep our games on Steam.

Left unsaid are the exact terms of Steam's new policy. As reported yesterday, the new terms seem to restrict games from being sold if their associated DLC can't be sold directly through Steam. Dragon Age 2 (and Crysis 2 before it) sold new content with BioWare Points, and were yanked from the service. The word "new" is important, because games can apparently use the same DLC distribution system and be grandfathered in, as long as they don't introduce any new downloadable content.

It's all a bit muddy at the moment, and it's good to know that EA is at least attempting to work out an agreement with Valve. In the meantime, fans will have to grab certain EA games elsewhere.

Steve Watts

Editor-In-Chief

Steve Watts' youthful memories are are a blur of pixels, princesses, castles, and Mega Busters. After writing about games as a pastime for years, he got his first shot at a paid gig at 1UP. He's freelanced for several sites since then, and found a friendly home at Shacknews. His editorial duties include news, reviews, features, and lunatic ravings. He lives in the Baltimore-Washington area with his shockingly understanding wife.